How do you come up with your map idea?

I generally have a basic shape or style I want to end up with, then I fit pieces together till it closely resembles my vision.

 

I try and combine real life structures to form an overall idea, then tweak it from there.

 

Usually I just look at surreal paintings, maps from other games that I could blend together, exotic architecture, etc...

Most of the time I just go with the flow and pull a lot of my map's structures out of my ass. This way I have a bunch of usually sub-par maps with at least one great structure or general layout that I like. Then I choose the best ones from each map and stick them in some sort of balanced layout together for one good map. It's worked pretty well so far, but it's time consuming when you actually have time to consume.

 

I usually just sit down and think for the map's concept or theme or whatever, and I make it (most of the time it isn't what I thought of at first, but it normally works out when I test it )

 

I fell a sleep watching a movie and then I woke up with a bunch of ideas in my head. Seriously

 

I let cool structures from maps, structures from the outside world, and my onw ideas have crazy buht secs. Then somehow they form a map that plays really well. after that all I do is try my best to make it look sexy. I get most of my ideas at school somehow lol.

 

I build what I think looks cool, and then I add on with what I think will help the game play, and then I think up others ideas whilst I finish the first idea, then I stop with the first idea all together, and work on other ideas. So on and so forth, until I just go play matchmaking.

 

I've never really went along with a competitive map, but all of my casual maps occur from listening to other people. Sometimes someone says something and then I will twist it around and come up with something completely different. It's strange, but it happens often.

 

I try to think up what hasn't been done in a map yet, usually the popular maps or standard variants and I try and work that into something. I've only really had one turn out successfully because I didn't have the technical expertise of Halo 3 forge that many others did. I have a notebook of ideas that I've written out and sketched on that I will bust out and bring to life once I can salivate over Forge World.

 

I come up with my map ideas a lot of different ways. They come to me FAR too easily!

I don't understand people that say they have a hard time coming up with map ideas at all lol! Right now, I have probably 8-15 map ideas listed that I want to make in Reach. A few of them have a good start in Halo 3, but I never finished them. One can't be done the way I wanted to do it in Halo 3 because you can't make a pyramid with all flat sides because believe it or not, there is no piece or way to merge a piece to make a flat pyramid corner in Halo 3 forge. And one map is almost done, but lately I haven't wanted to work on it because its getting close to time for Reach to come out, so I'm wondering if I want to finish it or not.

Here are some maps I have thought of and how I came up with the ideas:

Kamberaj:

An I shaped map layout in the Crypt. It would work well for multi-team and free for all, if I finish it! Its very close to being finished, but seriously, Reach is almost here...
I got the idea from thinking about what it would be like to make a map similar to maps like Death Canyon and Infinity from Halo CE PC only WAY smaller, and from the idea to make a map in an I shape since my gf's name begins with an I. The name for the map Kamberaj is her last name. Some of the map's architecture is based off of Death Canyon, some off of my imagination, and some off of other old Halo CE maps such as Death Island and Sidewinder. I used 4 different base designs, two from my imagination, one from Death Island, and one from Sidewinder. I used a central structure in the middle where the teams will most often meet from Death Island, but altered it by not keeping the teleporter. I also featured tunnels up on the cliff walls like in Death Canyon and Infinity so that players can snipe from high up on the cliff walls in the middle, or come down from above ambushing other players.

Artifact:

Sandbox looks like ancient Egypt, which is famous for pyramids! If Artifact had been possible, it would have been the greatest Pyramid map that I have seen. Other pyramid maps usually had problems from the ones I have seen, but Artifact had a good layout. The only problem was that I tried to make the main pyramid to asthetically pleasing, and later realized I could not come up with a way to make a corner.

I had made two previous pyramid maps on Foundy. Obviously Foundry was even far less capable of pyramid building than Sandbox, so the maps were not exactly like true pyramids. So that is also where the idea came from, doing a version 3 of Artifact. V3 was a complete failure however. But once Reach comes... lookout for Artifact Version 4!

Temple of Crete:

Temple of Crete is a maze set in the Skybubble. A maze to me is similar to a pyramid because they are both things that pop into my mind right away when thinking about things I could build. Temple of Crete was the first map I built in Sandbox, before I knew how to merge pieces together. But surprisingly, it really doesn't look too bad when you play in it. From the outside, which you can't leave it while playing it anyway, it does look pretty bad lol. The layout of the maze is very good though. People don't ever understand where they're going in the maze. No one has played Temple of Crete and learned their way around it. It could have been much more confusing, and harder to solve, but building Temple of Crete in the skybubble greatly limited the size of a maze since you need floors, walls, and a roof as well.

Dome of Doom:

I thought it would be funny to make a map with man cannons blasting people back and forth off the walls so I made it. This was a Foundry map I made way back before Sandbox and before I really knew how to do much with forging, although the map is a little fun at least to play with random weapons.

Johnson's Home:

My first attempted maze map on Foundry. It did not turn out to be a good maze map, because after a minute or two you know your way around. Its just not complex enough to be considered a maze map. But it did surprisingly turn out to be a pretty good layout for free for all slayer, oddball, juggernaut, and infection. Maybe some other gametypes too. I even altered the map to make it play more like a traditional map and less like a maze map, since it is not actually a maze anyway. I had no idea what to name it since there isn't anything to special about it, so I saw something with Johnson and called it his home. He deserves a home.

Race Track:

Yes I thought of that name all by myself! My inspiration for this map was to bring NASCAR to Halo 3, and tons of huge jumps because jumps are fun. And Halo CE's level the Maw had lots of big fun jumps which were awesome. So I could care less about NASCAR but I grew up seeing it with my grandfather watching it so when I thought about racing I thought stock cars, not mongeese like everyone else. In fact, back then I had never even seen race track maps yet and did not even know most people use Mongeeses for their racing maps. So I built a race track map in Foundry, yes Foundry not Sandbox, I didn't have it then or it wasn't around yet, for Warthogs. And built 5 cool jumps that were just tough enough where you might miss them sometimes, but not all the time, so that way you might miss one jump per a lap or so. I still don't get why people prefer mongeeses as the racing vehicle. I mean seriously... Warthogs are awesome... and can ram stuff and other Warthogs much better than Mongeeses. Get with it in Reach people!

 

How i come up with ideas seem really weird i have been told.

I get my ideas from Physical Activity, like sport an such. Also i have noticed that when i Eat bread or something i imagine what can be built on it or something. Lets just say im messed up in the head.

 

That is indeed a fascinatingly bizarre way of coming up with ideas for maps lol.

 

I usually only follow three different themes:

Tall structural design-Like a tower with certain concepts in mind like an assault from one team with a bomb to another team who defend using trip mines, grenades, power drains and so on.

Tunneling Structures-Like a temple or pyramid.

Bases-Probably the most basic of the three, basically just a bunch of bunkers that are set up using structural designs similar to the other two level concepts I use.

 

basically take a look at regular structures alot of which are of ancient type, aka Mayan Egyptian etc and i try to model maps around that or just take what i would consider urban styles and make maps like that just due to personal insight.

I also draw up what i want to do before i do it.

 

When i drive down the road or just go anywhere i take buildings or other objects that i see and picture how i could incoporate it into a map. For example... I live in Austin, Texas and i was downtown by the University of Texas Football Stadium (actualy going to the game... sorry random) and i saw this abandoned (or at least it seemed that way) factory that had a really nice layout with low and high roof tops that were easily accesable from where i was standing. I imediately started imaging a game of halo being played right where i was standing. Now, i am not a nerd who imagines playing Halo everywhere i go, it just sort pops in my head sometimes when i see a really cool environment. Just my imagination at work.

 

Learn as much as a I can about Forge and every little trick then sit down and think of something original and creative that would be fun to play for everyone based off absolutely anything.

 

Recently, I've been finding inspiration in other maps made, or hell, even places from other video games. My first "finished" prototype for Reach was originally inspired by a location in World of Warcraft; Dalaran. It had a fountain in the middle with four lanes to get to it, and opposite those, a certain building. It's kind of a clock shape almost; with the four tunnels to the fountain at 12:00, 3:00, 9:00, and 6:00, while the four buildings at 1:30, 4:30, 7:30, and 10:30.

As I started to sketch, I decided that the map would be based around a center object, with a circle shape around it, encasing points of interest, such as bases and walkways. I made a complete sketch; it ended up as a bunch of platforms around a center, with a tower in the middle.

About a day later, I came back to the drawing and just looked at it and thought how much better it would be if it was a circle; so I did just that: I made it a circle, and while doing that, looked into the Forging 201 article to learn about the flow and good weapon placements. So, after about three hours of simply thinking, I went from a World of Warcraft fantasy location to a full-out map plan.

...And I still haven't made it in SketchUp. I really should.

-Vitreosity